Film News Roundup: ‘Kung Fu Girl’ Set for Chinese Shoot With Kenny Gage, Devon Downs
In today’s film news roundup, “Kung Fu Girl” gets directors, a documentary on President Donald Trump’s mental health starts production and blockchain platform TaTaTu reports early success.
CHINA PROJECT
China’s SinoLicensing Media has signed the directing team of Kenny Gage and Devon Downs to direct their upcoming feature, “Kung Fu Girl,” Variety has learned exclusively.
The film will be shot on location in China later this year. Gage/Downs’ credits include the recent BET Digital series “The Last One” and the indie feature “Cynthia.” This is their eighth feature film.
Set for Chinese theatrical release in 2019, “Kung Fu girl” centers around a 12-year-old female martial artist and includes a strong anti-bullying message. Hongbin Liao wrote the script.
The producer is Chuan “Melody” Bi and Michael Fang is the executive producer. Gage/Downs are represented by manager/producer Judy Fox.
ANTI-TRUMP DOCUMENTARY
Director/Producer Dan Partland and producer Art Horan have begun production on “#UNFIT,” a documentary that explores the mental health community’s concerns about the fitness of President Donald Trump.
The film follows the findings and assessments of mental health professionals under the guidance of Dr. John D. Gartner, working in collaboration with the grass-roots group, A Duty to Warn. Gartner also serves as executive producer.
“Donald Trump’s mental instability and severe psychopathology pose a grave risk to both to our nation and the planet,” said Gartner. “We have no choice but to break our silence. Mental-health professionals are ‘mandated reporters’ with a duty to warn the community if there is a potential danger.”
Many in this film assert that a psychiatric diagnosis of Trump in accordance with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual finds that Trump suffers from a variety of possible psychological disorders, from narcissistic personality disorder to pre-dementia.
Gartner served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years. Partland’s credits include the series “Intervention,” “The Sixties” and “American Race,” and the features “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack.”
The Duty to Warn group launched a Kickstarter campaign Tuesday with a goal of raising $100,000 for the production by July 7. The group raised more than $3,100 on its first day.
BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM
Ambi Media Group CEO Andrea Iervolino is touting the success of TaTaTu, his blockchain-based platform intertwining social media activity with entertainment viewing in its Alpha launch phase.
The expanded Beta version is now set for a July 1 launch, he announced Tuesday.
“Our goal is for TaTaTu to be a catalyzing platform for the movie industry, as much as a social entertainment platform,” Iervolino said.
TaTaTu has begun producing original exclusive content for the platform. Jeremy Renner is the subject of the first original documentary fwith a look behind the actor’s music on the CGI-animated family film “Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad.” The original documentary will be released on the TaTaTu platform simultaneously with the theatrical release of the film this summer.
TaTaTu is also backing the upcoming Lamborghini biopic starring Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin, which is being co-financed and co-produced with Ambi Media Group. TaTaTu incentivizes content consumption by offering digital tokens for view.
“Where most content platform business models are based on making the final user pay for content, generating a market for illegal content monetization and therefore less revenues for content owners, TaTaTu is listening to the marketplace and adapting — giving free access to content and going a step further to reward users with an automatic monetization system,” Iervolino said.
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